Tustin-based business Epic Cosplay Wigs is doing a roaring trade at Comic-Con 2018

Share this:

Michelle Soon, of San Francisco, right, combs out her newly purchased wig at the Epic Cosplay Wigs booth during the San Diego Comic-Con in San Diego on Saturday, July 21, 2018. Epic Cosplay Wigs is located in Tustin. (Photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

But if you do cosplay, you probably know them as one of the go-to retailers in the United States for wigs, hairpieces, and know-how on dressing up as your favorite anime or pop culture character down to the tiniest of details.

At Comic-Con International in San Diego, Jenna Zhang and Melissa Ross oversee a brisk trade in wigs of varying length, style and color at booth 5602 on the exhibition floor Saturday, July 21. There are wigs of black, blonde, and brown hair, but also purple, teal, pink and fiery red for those who like to cosplay anime characters.

Ross, the marketing director for Epic Cosplay Wigs, says that, so far at the con, sales at the booth have been “crazy.”

Wigs for sale at the Epic Cosplay Wigs booth during the San Diego Comic-Con in San Diego on Saturday, July 21, 2018. Epic Cosplay Wigs is located in Tustin. (Photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Wigs for sale at the Epic Cosplay Wigs booth during the San Diego Comic-Con in San Diego on Saturday, July 21, 2018. Epic Cosplay Wigs is located in Tustin. (Photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

Sound

The gallery will resume inseconds

Jenna Zhang, president, and Melissa Ross, marketing director, of Epic Cosplay Wigs at their booth during International Comic-Con in San Diego on Saturday, July 21, 2018. Epic Cosplay Wigs is located in Tustin. (Photo by Diya Chacko | SCNG)

Michelle Soon, of San Francisco, right, combs out her newly purchased wig at the Epic Cosplay Wigs booth during the San Diego Comic-Con in San Diego on Saturday, July 21, 2018. Epic Cosplay Wigs is located in Tustin. (Photo by Jennifer Cappuccio Maher, Inland Valley Daily Bulletin/SCNG)

“We’ve had to do restocks every single day, from Tustin to here, just so we wouldn’t have bare walls,” Ross said, adding that Epic Cosplay Wigs has a presence at almost every major convention and some of the minor shows as well.

Epic Cosplay Wigs opened in 2009, and over the last decade has grown from a small, online-only retailer to a shop on Myford Road in Tustin with a showroom and a studio. Their customers span the country, and the store’s website is the number-one search result on Google for the keywords “cosplay wigs.”

Zhang, who lives in Irvine and is Epic Cosplay Wigs’ president, said she used to cosplay herself — but now that she’s a mother of two, she dresses them up instead.

Her daughter, who’s dressed as Belle from Disney’s “Beauty and the Beast” Saturday, “has a different princess outfit every single day of Comic-Con,” she said.

“We are die-hard fans,” Zhang said. “We don’t just want to have a business, we want to promote the (cosplay) community.”

Ross, who lives in Long Beach, said that originally, the Tustin location was only being used as an office with a small showroom for the online business, but that customers began showing up directly at their door.

“We had to hire a dedicated receptionist just for those people,” Zhang said. “There’s a lot of cosplayers who live in the area.”

Now the store has a running schedule of in-person events just for customers, like cosplay meet-ups and photo shoots, where people can browse the wigs and try them on for potential costumes.

“Our last turnstile event had about 1,000 attendees,” Ross said. “It was Halloween.”

Ross said it’s important for the store’s staff to have the knowledge of what cosplayers might need for their character costumes.

“You need to have people who can recommend the correct product,” she said. “So when we watch anime, it’s because we’re doing it for work!”

“We’re the only cosplay specialty store in O.C.” Zhang said. “And there’s a huge community here.

Diya Chacko is the Public Health and Environment Editor for the Southern California News Group. A New Orleans native, Diya has degrees from USC Annenberg and Columbia University’s Earth and Environmental Science Journalism master's program. She had stints at the NASA Jet Propulsion Lab and the California Center for Health Reporting before becoming the Digital Production Manager for NOLA.com | The Times-Picayune in New Orleans. She started at The Orange County Register in 2017 as the Digital News Editor.